Epicor Prophet 21

Epicor is designed for the small to moderate size company that is growing out of Quickbooks or even Excel style solutions and blends them together to create a basic and fundamental ERP. It is a powerful tool in comparison, where it blends back-end and retail processing into one program. As a business expands and starts to work more directly with other larger businesses and their associated ERP’s, it starts to fall short. One of the major shortcomings is no streamlined way to do one task, rather multiple ways which then gets confusing as different users use different processes to achieve the same goal. Using external tools (ie. Card processing equipment, barcode scanners, Telxon handhelds, etc) is a major task and doesn’t fluidly adapt, making use of the system as operations expand challenging. It is in no way comparable to SAP or Oracle, however can be a powerful tool for companies looking to grow their business with a smaller ERP.

I am trying to implement the cloud version of P21

ERP system that attempts to handle most functions within your distribution business

We Implemented this software back in December of 2018. Since then it has been a complete nightmare. Every technical issue you have needs to be submitted through a ticket system. While the responses are decent, the solutions involves a link to an article. Sometimes it’s a solution, but often it isn’t. So time consuming and not very helpful. Worse is their customer service. Purchased the P21 Mobile app and it doesn’t even show Service Orders! Of course, you can’t get any recourse. Their policy, “We don’t refund purchased modules”! What about servicing your customers?! Unless you have someone technical on staff, avoid this software at all costs.

Overall, I’m happy with system, but it has limited reporting for kitting and assemblies. We continue to pay them for service and updates that we don’t use. I do like that we can enter our orders and it can help us purchase it well.

Rich distribution functionality; latest technology

It definitely has some pro’s with being able to track inventory and orders. But if I had to do it over again, I would NEVER go with this company. They are absolutely disgusting in getting every penny they can get! We have for the past 5 years with this system spent at the MINIMUM of $40,000 for ESSENTIAL ITEMS! They are such an awful company!

P21 allows you to invest in software that is ever changing and growing to meet the needs of their customers, they are continually learning and getting feedback from their customers on how to make the software more user friendly for people in all businesses which i think is great

Prophet 21 is a fully-functional ERP that covers all aspects of my business. For distributors, there isn’t a better choice. Prophet 21 offers an entire suite of accounts payable, accounts receivable, inventory management, and transaction management programs. It is easy to implement and easy to use.

Prophet 21 is a full-featured, fully scaleable ERP system for medium to large business. Or for smaller enterprises on a growth track. It can handle any or all of accounting, purchasing, inventory management, assembly, routing, price/cost management, etc.

Prophet 21 helps us to provide better customer service with real-time and accurate information. It also helps our users to easily find the answers with a few simple clicks instead of weeding through paperwork like we did previously.

We are a leader in the Fluid Power Industry in which we design, sell and Service equipment and parts along with manufacture custom hydraulic systems through distribution. We have 2 companies across 9 locations with 3 manufacturing divisions. Each location has a showroom for Front Counter Sales (Point of Sale) and a Service Department with a stocking warehouse. We perform central based purchasing and forecasting mainly with some location based purchasing where needed. We use Prophet 21 software in every aspect of our company across all locations, short of payroll and internal purchasing of our business consumables in a mostly dominant thin client environment. Prophet 21 has a vast amount of features that allows it to be compatible with many different business models throughout several industries which can make it a little over complicated on what to do via data-entry as your company doesn’t use every single piece of functionality and you have to fill in the appropriate area for what your company is using as there are allot of fields and tabs that you could have to update. So it can produce very detailed information if allot of the fields are utilized. Speed is a huge concern with this software as it has multiple layers of programming on top of an outdated platform that makes the data entry workable but painfully slow once you get used to running the software.

Epicor Eclipse is easy to use and easy to learn. I have only been with this company for about 8 months and had never heard of Epicor or Eclipse and I am getting around pretty good already. Actually I have been for a couple of months now. One thing I like is that there is a whole community of users that share their tips and tricks for using the system which helped. The representatives with the company (that I have spoken with) are patient. I do agree that the support fees are way to high, but, on the other hand, in my opinion they do a lot of behind the scenes work. We are using an older version and I am excited about the chance to move up to a newer, more aesthetically pleasing version in the near future. Epicor offers training after the installation (for a charge per person) in the form of classes held regularly, which is better than I can say from my previous experience with SAP. I can’t really say if I would choose this product again, because we are on an older version, which I don’t like. It looks too much like I am using a mainframe.

We are a leader in the Fluid Power Industry in which we design, sell and Service equipment and parts along with manufacture custom hydraulic systems through distribution. We have 2 companies across 9 locations with 3 manufacturing divisions. Each location has a showroom for Front Counter Sales (Point of Sale) and a Service Department with a stocking warehouse. We perform central based purchasing and forecasting mainly with some location based purchasing where needed. We use Prophet 21 software in every aspect of our company across all locations, short of payroll and internal purchasing of our business consumables in a mostly dominant thin client environment.

The vast amount of features allows it to be compatible with many different business models throughout several industries which can make it a little over complicated on what to do via data-entry as your company doesn’t use every single piece of functionality and you have to fill in the appropriate area for what your company is using as there are allot of fields and tabs that you could have to update. So it can produce very detailed information if allot of the fields are utilized. Speed is a huge concern with this software as it has multiple layers of programming on top of an outdated platform that makes the data entry workable but painfully slow once you get used to running the software.

Recommendations are in order of robustness in each area of business. Purchasing - Very Strong Distribution - Very Strong Sales - Strong (Does not currently have a “true” Point of Sale Module / No security for sales pricing over-rides) Pricing Sales/Purchasing Structures - Strong (Does not show % discount for orders / Rebates are cumbersome) Service & Maintenance - Strong to Medium: Needs a lot of work for differences in business models for Service. Scheduling a service is a challenge. Manufacturing - Light: When they mean light manufacturing they mean it. Not a CNC type manufacturing add-on. They are currently working on a scheduling functionality that will help a ton but would still be a lot of work to run a large caliber manufacturing facility using this add-on. Some things are nice and some other are horridly missing. There is better software that handles manufacturing easier. CRM - Thumbs is half down: Can get away with the baseline functionality and better with some customization but a purchasable integrated add-on’s make’s a world of difference! Reporting - Baseline: Thumbs Down - Need to purchase add-on if you want any business oversight and strong reports. Someone with Highly developed SQL and or C++ Skills recommended. Crystal skills is a bonus. Can get away with middle of the road knowledge in those areas but the highly developed skills make a world of difference in molding your business processes.